Startup Ando launches messaging platform for collaboration between humans and AI agents, raises $20 million
Startup Ando has released a team communication platform where AI agents have their own identity and inbox and can participate in conversations like humans. The company raised $20 million from Accel, Index Ventures, and Emergence.
Startup Ando, founded by Sara Du, has emerged from stealth with a team communication app intended for both humans and AI agents. According to the company, agents on the platform receive their own identity and inbox, can join channels, group conversations, and direct messages without needing to be tagged, and if they determine that a human needs to be alerted, they can message that person directly without waiting for approval. The platform also supports video calls with transcription, available to both humans and agents.
Ando presents itself as a replacement for Slack or Teams for companies that make extensive use of AI agents. According to Du, the motivation behind the company was the feeling that existing communication tools treat agents as apps to be installed, whereas in reality they are becoming full-fledged participants in team work, with people inadvertently acting as intermediaries between agents and the rest of the company.
The company raised $20 million in a pre-seed and seed round from investors Accel, Index Ventures, and Emergence. According to Du, Ando is currently working with customers in software, real estate, and finance across 15 countries, mostly with small teams. The company plans to use the raised capital to hire people and cover token processing costs.
Ando is entering a market where established players already integrate support for AI agents — Slack has turned its bot into an AI agent, and Microsoft is embedding Copilot into Teams and Office 365. A similar concept of combining humans and agents in a single messaging app was also recently introduced by Jack Dorsey with the app Buzz, aimed more at developers.
Why it matters
For companies that already deploy AI agents in their work processes today, Ando offers an alternative to manually forwarding agent outputs between tools and people — according to the company, agents can initiate communication themselves and participate in decision-making in real time. This is particularly relevant for small teams that want to scale performance without a proportional increase in headcount. At the same time, this is a new entrant into the team communication market, where established players (Slack, Microsoft Teams) as well as other startups (Buzz from Jack Dorsey) are already addressing the same problem of agent integration, making this an emerging category of tools without a proven long-term market position.
Two audiences, two different impacts
What this means
For individuals
People working in teams with AI agents can expect tools where agents communicate directly in channels and DMs, without the need to act as an intermediary between the agent and colleagues.
More practical updates →For a business
Companies deploying AI agents in internal communication now have access to a specialized platform as an alternative to Slack or Teams, which may influence the choice of tools for coordinating work between humans and agents.
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